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HISTORICAL RECORDS 



STATEN ISLAND, 

(Jentennial and ^i-Centennial, 



FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS AND MORE. 



■% 



ELIVERED AT StATEN IsLAND, NOVEMBER 1ST, 1883, 



By Hon. ERASTUS BROOKS. 



" Guttenberg, loithout knowing it, was the vteckanist of the new world. /« creating 

the communication 0/ ideas, he /uis assured the independence of reason. Every 

letter of his alphabet which left his fingers contained in it more power 

than the armies of kings or the thunders of pontiffs. It 

was mind which he furnished with language." 

— Lamartine's Eistory of the Girondists, 









f 



HISTORICAL RECORDS. 



Fellow Citizens of Staten Islaiid: 

THE proper orator for an occasion like the present 
Avould be some descendant of one either born upon 
the soil or descended from some one of its inhabit- 
ants — one who by heroism, influence or action liad made 
a part of its early history. Two hundred years of time, 
long as it may seem to American citizens, is byt a small 
period in the history of countries like England, Ger- 
many, Austria or France, the old nations of Europe, 
each of which count their years of settlement by more 
than eleven centuries of time. Russia counts her exist- 
ence by less than a third of this period, or in a period 
beginning about the time when, as in 1523, Verrazani 
sailed along our shores. 

The people who are here now, and those who pre- 
ceded them, belong to. almost all the nations of the 
earth. 

We know but little of the pre-Revolutionary history 
of Staten Island, and not all we would like to know of 
its Revolutionary history, and there are some things we 
do know we wish not to remember or desire to forget. 
In this respect, however, most of our predecessors were 
in no sense a peculiar people. Whether in old New 
England or present New England, or on to the Hudson, 
the Potomac, the Savannah, and beyond as far as the 
Colonies went east or west, north or south, there were 
devotees of Great Britain, who from the beginning of 
the first sign of the separation from the mother country 
dreaded the act itself. 



The foremost men who took part in the war, when it 
came, were perhaps as timid as those who saw the end 
from the beginning, were of this class. It was what is 
sometimes called destiny, but what we may more wisely 
call Providence, or the ways of God to man, that pointed 
and paved the way of independence. Step by step, the 
end came from the day when Hkndrick Hudson first 
named the Island in honor of "the Island of the States" of 
Holland, and as far as we know, made it his first landing 
place or station^ which it was once erroneously suggested 
was the origin of the name we bear. '■'• Aquehonga Afan- 
achnong " w^as at least one of the aboriginal names of the 
Island. "£ggena/io us, "the place of bad woods, was another 
local name. Here was one of the first Dutch settlements 
in the New World. Here, or very near here, 242 years ago, 
the Dutch Colony was attempted or planted. And even 
then Hudson had been so long dead that his first voyage 
of discovery, as well as his sad ending by treachery upon 
the sea was almost forgotten. No one knows the resting 
place of either Verrazani or Hudson. 

The first immigrants who landed here from old Hol- 
land were disabled and sick with fevers. Even in the 
spring time the voyage continued for 122 days, and 
we read, that like Alexander the Great, "they were 
much put out and annoyed by the angry waves." The 
first home site upon this Island was selected for its close 
proximity to the sea, for its surrounding uplands, and 
for the general beauty of the scenery. This grandeur 
of highland and forest, of ocean and inland views over 
sea and land, has never left our island homes. We may 
speak of it indeed almost in the graphic language of 
Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, when, of his 
discoveries, he wrote home that "this country exceeds 
all others as far as the day exceeds the night in splendor." 
Later on, September 15th, 1609, Hendrick Hudson from 
just beyond our island, in a more utilitarean spirit, 
wrote home from the Half Moon, "Of all the lands in 
which I ever set my foot this is the best for tillage." 
And this discernment is as true to-day of the capacities 
of this island as it was 274 years since. There were 



mineral attractions that won the eyes and ears of tliose 
beyond the sea. But what they took for gold was sand, 
and these sand banks were the first in the country to be 
used for making a kind of glass which was declared to 
be for " highly useful and ornamental purposes." Even 
the iron pyrites with which the Indians painted their 
faces, was pronounced to be gold until 1645, when the 
Amsterdam Company tested its value in the crucible of 
common science and common sense. The iron is still 
here with, I fear on the whole, much more of labor and 
enterprise than of profit, but such was the old time value 
placed upon the ore that the Government was petitioned 
to protect the gold seekers and other miners from the 
incursion of the Raritan Indians. 

The grant of land which included what is now known 
as Staten Island and the Arthur KuU, came from the 
West India Company, was made to the two Patroons, 
KiLLiAN Van Rensellaer and Michael Pauw in 1630. 
This land grant extended from Troy and Albany to the 
Sound. Staten Island fell to the lot of Pauw, whose 
possessions extended from Hoboken to our ocean bord- 
ers. Communipaw was named from Pauw, and simply 
meant the Commune-of-Pauw, the word Commune hav- 
ing a very different meaning in 1630 and in 1883. In 
the former case it meant simply a vast tract of land in 
the possession of one man. 

HISTORICAL OLD-TIME PLACES. 

One of these is Toadt Hill, since called Iron Hill, on 
account of the iron pyrites found along upon the eleva- 
vations. In the Revolutionary War the hill was a look- 
out station from land to the sea. The old elm tree 
Beacon at the foot of New Dorp Lane, and overlooking 
all the surrounding country, was also a British signal 
station. British vessels of war covered Bay and harbor 
alike. The Whale's Back was the name of another of 
the old-time stations. At old Fort Tompkins, now Fort 
Wadsworth, was a block house, built for a defense 
against the Indians, just two hundred years ago, with 



only two small cannon as a protection a^^ainst all kinds 
of foes. 

From 1776 to 1783, the British had their principal 
signal station near the present fort, and in the war of 
181 2-15, the same station was used by the Americans, 
with Dr. Clark, father of the present Senior Dr. Clark, in 
command. The old Guion Homestead, near the sea, the 
present residence of Dr. Ephraim Clark, is one of the 
old landmarks if not the oldest building- upon the Island- 
I have recently seen the deed of the farm signed by Gov. 
Andros in 1675, as the agent and representative of the 
Duke of York; the net rent of this land, some two or 
three hundred acres in all, and still a good farm, was 
payable yearly in eight bushels of good winter wheat; 
the receipts by payment are still preserved. (See Ap- 
pendix A.) 

No British footsteps have trodden upon our shores 
since November, 1783. The little fort, though useless 
for defence now, in the second war with England was 
equal to the occasion. In the civil war of 1861-65 when 
an old rebel iron clad off Norfolk sunk two of our best 
frigates, we had our panic of what might happen here, 
but a Staten Island Engineer, Alfred Stimers, under 
Capt. WoRDEN, just in the nick of time for the public 
safety, drove off the enemy and most providentially pro- 
tected the coast from rebel invasion. 

I propose, under three heads, to consider some of the 
chief events which have inspired the commemoration in 
which, as citizens, we are to-day engaged, and in a brief 
appendix to name some of the habits and customs of 
Indian life upon the Island, adding to this a brief record 
of its material resources and values. 

OUR PRE-REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY 

Is almost purely local, except as this Island shared in 
events of special history to the wliole Province. The 
past events recall subjects of general interest to men 
who care to know who they are, from whence they came, 
and Avhat they owe to the land of their birth and adoption. 
Our Irish, German and British born citizens through 



the lands which gave them birth, one and all, have some 
connection in the subjects and facts which I shall name. 
I shall be made happy if the hour proves one of instruc- 
tion or pleasure to those who hear me. 

Where Manhattan Island was once, and finally, sold 
for a barter value at $24, this Island, under Lovelace, 
was bought April 13, 1670, of the " true owners and 
lawful Indians," at the following price, the right to sell 
being Indian as stated in the indenture, because the land 
" was devised to them by their ancestors." Nine Sachem s 
signed the deed, and the sale reads as follows: 

"The payment agreed upon for ye purchase of Staten Island, 
conveyed this day by ye Indian Sachems property is, viz.: 

1. Four hundred fathoms of wampum. 

2. Thirty match boots. 

3. Eight coates of Durens made up. 

4. Thirt}^ shirts. 

5. Thirty kettles. 

6. Twenty gunnes. 

7. A firkin of powder. 

8. Sixty barres of lead. 

9. Thirty axes. 

10. Thirty horns. 

11. Fifty knives." 

Later on Cornelis Melyn sold, as Patroon, his own 
limited interest in the Island for $600. 

Another sale of the Island by the Indians was for 
"certain cargoes or parcels of goods." The sale of 
Pauw brought 26,000 guilders "for his purchases upon 
the Island and Continent." 

The West India Company, in all cases, insisted that 
the four Commissioners, acting as Patroons, should ex- 
tinguish all Indian titles before their own ownership 
could be confirmed. 

The sale of Staten Island under Gov. Dongan, which 
was but one of man.y sales, included "all the messuages, 
tenements, fencings, orchards, gardens, pastures, mead- 
ows, marshes, woods, underwoods, trees, timbers, quar- 
ries, rivers, brooks, ponds, lakes, streams, creeks, harbors, 
beaches, fishing, hawking, fowling, mines, (silver and 
gold mines excepted), mills, mill dams," &c. 



All this was to be called " the Lordship and Manor 
of Cassiltowne," and there was more than ordinary 
diplomacy in the conveyance. Gov. Dongan conveyed 
all of the above land, woodland and water, to one 
Palmer, both his lawyer and his judge, because he could 
not legally hold it himself ; but two weeks after Dongan's 
conveyance, or on the i6th of April, 1687, John Palmer 
and Sarah, his wife, transferred all these possessions 
to Thomas Dongan, kinsman of the Governor. 

To Gov. Dongan, whose home, castle and hunting 
lodge on the Kills and on the Manor road, the present 
State is indebted for some of its existing records and 
laws. By instructions dated May 29, 1686, he was 
directed to issue marriage licenses, and this authority 
was continued up to the period of the Revolution. The 
''General Entry " and the " Order in Council," official 
books, are filled with these entries from 1686 to 1775. 
The separate register of marriage was made by the 
Secretary before license could be granted. A bond was 
also required, and 40 bound volumes at the State Capitol 
contain most of these bonds and licenses. The Quakers 
dissented from these requirements, and as not unfre- 
quently before and since, when Quakers deliberately 
make up their minds to a conclusion, they disobeyed the 
law and recorded their own marriages only in their own 
church registers. 

Tliese State records in various forms and upon vari- 
ous subjects, make up twenty-one volumes of the Dutch 
Government of the Province of New York, and all in 
all they contain the very essence of our earliest European 
civilization in all that relates to schools, churches and 
courts of law. Then, as so often since, the law was in 
advance of its administration. In one of these volumes 
are the acts of the first Assembly of New York, from 
1683-84. These are called "the Dongan Laws." 



UNDER THE DONGAN LAWS. 

Gov. Dong AN came to the Province of New York as its 
Governor in 1682, and was here known as Lord of the 
Manor. He Avas a firm believer in the religious and po- 
litical faith of James II., whether as Duke of York or as 
King, except that Dongan was far more tolerant, and 
hated the French, under whom he had once served as a 
military officer. He knew his friends and his foes, and 
how to govern each class of them upon this island, where 
he had his hunting lodge far up the present Manor road, 
and his Manor, called the Castle, erected in 1688, on the 
north shore, in a full square of land, which extended 
from Bodine and Dongan Streets to the waters of the 
Kill von Kull. He was as fond of land as any of his 
ancestors or successors in the land which gave him 
birth. To John Palmer, fresh from Barbadoes, just two 
hundred years ago, he gave what is known as the 
" Dongan " or " Palmer" patent. The stream separates 
Northfield from Castleton, and on its borders is the 
source of the spring water brought to many of your 
doors, and known as "Palmer's Run." The Governor 
made this man the first Judge of the first Court of Oyer 
and Terminer, and the Treasurer of the Province. Palmer 
was his land agent and the " Palmer Patent " meant DoN- 
gan's lands, and covered large tracts in different parts 
of the Island and included the salt meadows. 

No one man figures more prominently in our Pro- 
vincial history, and no one upon the Island as conspic- 
uously as that of Thomas Dongan, from the date of 
his commission as the first Royal Governor. His first 
service was under the Duke of York. Later on he was 
ordered to proclaim James II. king, to assist at the con- 
ference between Lord Effingham and the Five Nations, 
and in causing the king's arms to be set up through all 
the villages of the Five Nations, and to place arms in 
their hands. Among his many summary measures, all 
probably by royal authority, was one proposing to an- 
nex Pemaquid to Boston, and the less modest one of 
annexing New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to 



lO 

New York. Another order was to establish in the Prov- 
ince a colony of Indian Catholics. Constant claims of 
authority were asserted over the Senecas, Onondagas, 
Mohawks and Iroquois, and to make an alliance of the 
latter tribe with the Eastern Indians, and instigate them 
against the French. 

The French and English were as crafty in their Indian 
diplomacy as they were desperate in their merciless 
ventures against each other, and especially was this true 
in all their intercourse with the Indians. Only one ex- 
ample of this joint correspondence is added as a speci- 
men record of scores of letters. 

Extracts from Documentary Letters in 1686-87. 

Mr. Denonville, Sept. 29, 1686 : 

* * * "Think you, sir, that religion will progress whilst 3^our 
merchants suppl}', as they do, eau de vie in abundance, which con- 
verts the savages, as you ought to know, into demons and their 
cabins into counterparts and theatres of hell ?" 

And Dong AN, later on, Dec. nth, answers: 

" Certainly our rum doth as little hurt as your brandy, and in 
the opinion of Christians is mucli more wholesome, * * * to pro- 
hibit them all strong liquors seems a little hard and ver}' Turkish." 

The Governor's name remained upon the Island in 
his kinstnen for a century and more after his forced 
retirement, but long ago the family disappeared. 

The last of the original naine and immediate family, 
the State records tell us, reduced himself by vice to be a 
sergeant of foot or marines in 1798-99. The tombstone 
of Walter Dongan, and of Ruth his wife, was made 
in 1749 in the graveyard of St. Andrews Church. 
Another Walter Dongan died at the age of 93, and 
this one was the owner of a large property at the Four 
Corners. Another, known by the not very dignified 
title of ''Jacky Dongan," the Surrogate in 1733, was 
known as a free liver, a fast man, and several times 
" Member of Assembly ! " Being what is called a fast 
liver and a Member of Assembly, your present speaker 
almost ventures to trust makes no really necessary 
association in either life, service or practice; but who 



can tell ? All experience proves that the bad name in 
public service is not easily prevented. You may serve 
party and people with fidelity, but no man can serve 
God and mammon, at least with success, in any public 
place or body. 

AMONG OTHER NOVELTIES IN THE STATE DOCUMENTARY 
HISTORY 

is the memorable report of Gov. Dongan, covering forty 
octavo printed pages, dated February 22d, 1687, and ad- 
dressed to the Foreign Committee of Trade. The Gov- 
ernor is meeting the several queries of their Lordships, 
and to the loth inquiry he answers as follows : 

" I believe for these seven years last past there has not come over 
into this province twenty English, Scotch or Irish familys. But on 
the contrary on Long Island the people increase so fast that they 
complain for want of land and many remove from thence into the 
neighboring province." 

In another paragraph of this report their Lordships 
are, first by Sir Edmund Andros and then by Gov. 
Dongan, told that the Province of New York will fail 
to supply the needed revenue unless His Majesty will 
be graciously pleased to add " the Colony of Connecti- 
cut to the province of New York," which is " the Centre 
of all his Dominions in America ! 

Sir John Werden, in a letter to the Governor, dated 
St. James, in Nov. 1684, writes that 

" Staten Island without doubt belongs to ye Duke, for if Sir 
George Carterett had had right to it .that would have been long 
since determined, and those who broach such fancyes as may dis- 
turbe the quiett of possessions in ye Island are certainly very in- 
jurious to ye Duke, and we thinke have noe color for such pre- 
tences ! " 

In a letter to the Earl of Perth, Feb. 13, 1684-5, the 
Governor also declared that : 

" The Island had been in the possession of his R'll Highss 
above 20 years (except ye little time ye Dutch had it) purchased by 
Gov. Lovelace from ye Ind3'ans in ye time of Sir George Carteret 
without any pretences 'till ye agents made claime to it ; it is peopled 
with above two hundred ffamilyes." 



In the same letter we read that 

" The Quakers are making continued pretences to Staten Island, 
which disturbs the people, and one reason given for holding it is 
that if his Ro)'al Highness cannot retrieve East Jersey it will do well 
to secure Hudson's River and take away all claim to Staten Island ! " 

THE FIRST DUTCH COLONISTS 

came to America in 1623, and the first white child, it is 
believed, born in the country was of the Rapelye family 
first settled upon this Island. The want of food, for a 
brief time, took the parents to the extreme Southern 
point of Manhattan Island. 

The first settlement of this New York Province, 
Island and State, was inspired by the landing of the 
Pilgrims. While the first voyage was merely one for 
discovery and venture, forty-one years later came the 
first General Assembly based upon popular representa- 
tion, convened by request of burgomasters and sche- 
pens. It was at this period that Charles II. seized the 
Dutch settlements for the Duke of York, and with them 
the block house on Staten Island. And with the seizure 
came the order that every third man, '' with spade, 
shovel and wheelbarrow," is required to work on the 
city defences. The brewers were forbidden to malt any 
more grain. Fort Amsterdam just then, 1644, became 
Fort James, and the great city received its first christen- 
ing as " New York," which it has since retained. 

FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AT LEAST 

the Island was in a constant state of strife or warfare 
with the Indians, and then as ever since the native sons 
of the forest, I do not hesitate to say, were more sinned 
against than sinful. 

The Dutch in all New York were at times even 
harder masters than the English in New England or in 
New York. Staten Island had its open traitors in the 
person of Melyn and his chief, one Kurter, both of 
whom the Attorney-General pronounced worthy of 
death. Banishments and fines Avere made and compro- 
mises agreed upon for these offences. Old Governor 



^3 

Stuyvesant stood in double hostility to the Indians 
and to the English, and was a severe ruler over all his 
officials. Having with them neither nominal nor real 
authority, Melyn called Staten Island his colonies, and 
in a second strife Stuyvesant was summoned to answer 
charges of armed hostility and to appear before him. 
Melyn then fortified himself upon the Island, and here, 
as Patroon, occupied what he called his Manorial Court. 
As a consequence of this contention the houses and lands 
of Melyn in New Amsterdam were confiscated and sold. 

In one of the many tragedies growing out of con- 
llicts with the Indians, 64 canoes and from 1,500 to 1,900 
savages suddenly appeared before New Amsterdam, and 
later invaded Staten Island, where every white person 
was killed or captured. The captives in time, after 
fraud and barter, were returned in exchange for what 
was called an equivalent in powder to be used against 
the people at large. In one of these conflicts, in the 
present New York, the Indians killed one hundred 
whites, took 150 prisoners, and destroyed in 1655, 
$80,000 worth of property. And the sole cause of all 
this strife may be traced to the shooting of a squaw 
whose offence was stealing a few peaches in his garden, 
by Hendrick Van Dyck, once Attorney-General. The 
killing was instantaneous, but the revenge was pro- 
longed in time and in ferocity, and ever since the Indians 
have been taught to be just as unsparing in the work of 
retaliation as their assailants. 

For a long time there was between the Dutch, Eng- 
lish and Indians constant deaths by violence in the 
struggle for supreme power. Both the Walloons and 
Huguenots were here in considerable numbers, and de- 
voted to a faith for which so many in Europe had sac- 
rificed their homes, their lives and their fortunes. Like 
the Pilgrims they fled to the New World for liberty of 
conscience, but too many of them when in power, the 
honored name of Roger Williams always excepted, 
practiced the very persecutions from which they fled. 



14 

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 

Governor Dongan's brief government wasconspica- 
for a fierce controversy between citizens of an opposite 
religious faith. He could not, or would not, and this 
was to his credit, follow the extreme views of the Duke 
of York either as Prince or King. He not only hated 
the French in Canada and everywhere with a true Eng- 
lish repugnance, but the authority which appointed him 
and the faith in which he believed and the men whom 
he appointed to office caused a panic upon the Island in 
1689. The Protestant people in their terror for a time 
fled to the forest by day and to their boats for con- 
cealment by night, and those who fled seemed to believe 
that fire and sword were to be the consequences of their 
religious faith. On either side, however, but with most 
impressive exceptions, the religion of the land was not 
one of peace and good will, but rather a religon based 
upon terror, fear, flight and strife. 

The State papers tell us that the Government had a 
religious Governor, and established its church at New 
York and Staten Island, with a sahiry for the rectors of 
£100 per annum for the town and £50 per annum for the 
Island, to be raised from the people. The Society added 
£50. If the Government sent a minister he must be 
chosen by the people and inducted by order of the Gov- 
ernor, and this Island, we read, resisted one payment 
because " the person inducted had not received the 
Societies' leave to remove." 

GROWTH OF THE PROVINCE AND NATION. 

The Nation of which we arecitzens through all time 
has been peculiar in its birth, growth and destiny. 
Read the Preamble to the Federal Constitution, and 
further back, as the very basis of this fundamental law, 
the Declaration of Independence ; later again, Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address, which has always impressed me 
as a political inspiration in the form of a great paternal 
prayer and warning from one long called and known as 
the "Father of his Country." I use the word as tlie 



15 

Saviour of Men expressed a still higher thought when 
he said : " One is your Father and all ye are brethern ! " 

And most of all read, as the beginning of the end, 
the bold, noble, manly record put forth in this province 
just two hundred years ago, and then and there styled 
"the Charter of Liberties." The " order " which Gov. 
DoNGAN brought to this Colony was in advance of all 
that had gone before and has hardly been eclipsed since 
but it has taken two hundred years to win the prize and 
requires constant warfare to maintain and hold it. 

Gov. DoNGAN came, in 1682, "with instructions first 
of all to convoke a free Legislature." This assembly 
numbered seventeen members and never exceeded 
twenty-seven. On the 17th of October, 1683, seventy 
years after Manhattan was first occupied, and thirty 
after the Dutch had demanded a popular Convention, 
the representatives met in assembly and established a 
Ciiarter of Liberties, which placed New York side by 
side with Massachusetts and Virginia. This Charter 
gave supreme legislative power to Governor, Council 
and people met in General Assembly, and it is worthy of 
our time and any land. (B, Appendix.) Let me quote 
two or three sentences only as a type of the whole : 

" No freemen shall be punished but bjr judgment of his peers ; 
all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed 
on any pretence whatever but by the consent of the Assembly. No 
seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their 
will. No martial law shall exist. No person professing faith in God 
by Jesus Christ shall at any time be in anj"- way disquieted or ques- 
tioned for any difTerence of opinion." 

All this is grand, and worthy of any State or nation, 
but neither under King James nor any other king 
did this record become the law of the land, and not 
here, until the Constitution made free and independent 
States, were the people in any sense supreme in author- 
ity. Too long a local priesthood and partisan civil 
power combined to govern the State, and each party 
ruled in the spirit of what they were pleased to call 
"Divine authority," but the divinity which shaped their 
ends was simply the combination of Church and State. 



i6 

The king's ministers were the people's masters. The 
real State and the nominal Church were supreme. 

The Crown and Parliament, where the Parliament 
represents the people, were as distinct as the will and 
inheritance of the most unbridled one man power can 
be from a government of a Democracy or from Repub- 
lican power delegated by the people. As late as 1697, 
the Crown instructed the Earl of Bellemont, as Governor 
of the Province of New York, to appoint judges, create 
courts, prorogue Assemblies, disperse revenues, and to 
direct all acts of legislation in his own name and person. 
The Bish(jp of London alone could license the school 
masters of New York. No person could keep any print- 
ing press, nor print anything without the special leave 
and consent of the Governor. The verdicts of juries 
were set aside by order of the king even in 1765. This 
was the kind of royal power which the people both re- 
sented and rebuked, and which, not until 100 years later, 
culminated, first, in the Declaration of Independence, 
then in the War of the Revolution, and finally in the 
Federal Constitution. It required not alone the one 
hundred, but the full two hundred years to-day cele- 
brated, to secure freedom alike for the people of New 
York and for the citizens of the United States. Indeed, 
this side of the millenium there can never be any cessa- 
tion in the struggles for conscience over error, right 
over wrong, for truly liberty before license, whether in 
the State, the temptations of business or in our own 
personal lives. With Grotius dead and almost forgotten, 
Barneveldt also dead, popular right nowhere esteemed, 
the thirty year's contests concluded, rather without than 
with concessions for the claims which caused the war; 
with civil war in England; Charles I. beheaded; James, 
King of England, openly resisting the Charter I have 
read, and which declared that justice and right may be 
equally done to all persons, not respected, Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire denied 
all civil liberty; the Charter of Connecticut hidden in 
the oak at New Haven, and New York and New Jersey 
included in "the New Dominion," it is not strange tliat 



17 

it was not until 1691 that the General Assembly passed 
the original charter of liberty, which the king repealed 
in 1697. 

As one of the incidents of these early times, just 210 
years since from the date of the 7th of last August, a 
Dutch fleet of twenty-three ships, needing wood and 
water, anchored in the Bay close to the Island. The 
only armed defenders of the Island at that time were 
Captain John Manning, who communicated with the 
Commodores Evertson and Benckes upon the weakness 
of his defense, and in three days New Netherlands was 
under the control of the Dutch. To the great honor of 
the English, however, their possession was very brief, 
for in the March following, by the terms of the West- 
minster treaty, Major Edmund Andros, in the name of 
His Majesty, the King of England, was in full posses- 
sion of all that Manning had surrendered. Disgrace 
followed the surrender. 

THE EFFORT TO SECURE SELF-GOVERNMENT 

In the Province of New York, and which, in one form 
or another, the little County of Richmond at times took 
its part, may be traced back to 1649. The Dutch settlers 
here demanded as much liberty as was enjoyed in Hol- 
land, and in 1653, under orders to Stuyvesant, sometimes 
known as Director and sometimes as Governor, there 
was a sellout or sheriff, two burgomasters and five schep- 
ens as successors to " the Nine Men," who had long been 
the chief rulers of the city of New Amsterdam. What 
is called monopoly was then in full force as ever since 
that time. The first Convention ever held in the Prov-* 
ince, undertook to regulate the price of provisions and 
of most kinds of merchandise. 

The first Convention met in 1653, then in 1663 and 
1664, when Staten Island took part with Rensslaaerwyck, 
Fort Orange, New Amsterdam, Wiltwyck, Harlem, New 
Utrecht, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatlands and Flatbush 
in a General Assembly of the whole State. This Island 
then had two representatives in the persons of David 
DE Marest and Pierre Bellou of the entire 21 members 



of the Assembly. Ten Counties in 1664 represented the 
present New York. Under the first apportionment of 
177 1, Richmond County had two members of Assembly, 
and from 1791 on but one. In 1683, of the then twelve 
counties, two, Dukes and Cornwall, became a part of 
Massachusetts. The representatives of the Colonial As- 
sembly from 1691 to 1769 numbered but thirty-one mem- 
bers ; without Dukes and Cornwall, but 27 on to 1796. 
In each of these public meetings, Richmond County had 
at least two members. Kings, Queens, Ulster, Duchess 
and Albany, as the rule, had no more. In the ist, 3d, 
4th, 8th, 17th, 25th and 26th Colonial Assemblies, this 
County had three members. The nine counties of 1691 
only increased to 16 (of the present sixty counties) as 
late as 1761. In the first Assembly, John Stackwell, 
Quaker, of Richmond, was dismissed for refusing to 
take the oath, and also Nathaniel Pearsall of Queens. 
John Tallman, of Albany, was dismissed for presenting 
a paper "writ in barbarous English !" Humphrey Un- 
DERHiLL was cxcludcd for refusing to attend " before he 
had his money." Another member was expelled for a 
little honest opposition to the Council and Assembly, 
and another in 1715 for a printed speech "made to the 
General Assembly, without leav« of the House," in which 
we read " many false and scandalous reflections upon 
the Governor of this Province." Not many of the mem. 
bers in these Colonial Assemblies rested upon beds of 
roses. In 17 13-14, one body was dissolved by the death 
of Queen Anne, who gave the silver service to the St. 
Andrew's Church at Richmond, and another in August, 
"1727, by the death of George I., and another, March, 
J761, by the death of George II. 

Gov. DoNGAN was the first Royal Chief Magistrate 
•who permitted the people to elect their members of As- 
.se'mbly. In the Provincial Congress the county had five 
representatives; in the second, two ; in the third, five, 
;and in the lourth, none. These so called Congresses 
:appear to be but another name for Assemblies, (the last 
•of which was held in 1775), but with a larger represen- 
itation. (Appendix B.) 



19 



THE TAXES AND PROPERTY 200 YEARS AGO. 

Taxes, from time immemorial, have been the causes 
of conflict and the source of more than half the wars 
of Europe. They caused the war with England and 
forced the independence of the United States. In the 
form of tariifs and rates they are the one chief cause of 
contention all over our land and all over the world. 
But two hundred years ago upon this Island the tax was 
just one bushel of wheat for each eighty acres of land, 
and on Long Island one penny in the pound " for the 
County's charges." 

The State papers tell us that at the first court, two 
overseers and one constable were here in 1665, and that 
the Island v/as exempt from the county's charge because, 
as we read : 

" Staten Island is comprehended in the West Riding of Long 
Island, (and both Islands as one, in 1665, were called Yorkshire) but 
payeth noe tax, being enjoined by their Patents to pay a bushel of 
good winter wheate, but never paid any yet because (as they sa)') it 
hath not been demanded ! " 

When and where, indeed, have the people, singly or 
otherwise, been voluntary taxpayers ? 

NEW YORK CITY'S CLAIM TO LOW WATER MARK. 

The Earl of Clarendon to Gov. Hunter of New 
York, July ye 31st, 17 10, writes as follows on certain 
land grants : 

" Lands between high water and low water mark on Staten 
Island lately granted to the city of New York for ;i^30o, being the 
lands lately in possession 6f several inhabitants of that Island, tho' 
now covered with the sea, the land being washed away." 

In 165 1 the boundaries of New Netherland are 
named, and Staten Island is placed upon the North 
River. 

In a memoir of M. d'Cherville on Boston and its 
dependencies, written in 1701, is the following: 

" Staten Island, which is fully seven leagues in circumference^ 
may have 450 effective men, most of whom are Dutchmen and Wal- 
loons, with a few English." 



In 1883, with more than forty thousand people, the 
Island has no military company of her own, but to its 
credit there are now a score or more of worthy citizens 
who belong to the State National Guard. 

THE WEST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS AGENTS. 

One order and complaint of the West India Com- 
pany, in 1650, was to Hendrick Van Dyck, a so-called 
fiscal, who had not kept a strict watch at Staten Island 
on the night on which he, C. Melyn, went over, as that 
was "the place where you could fall in with all the con- 
traband goods that he hath run on shore there during 
tiie night and at unseasonable times." 

This Hendrick Van Dyck, fiscal, is declared as 
"leading a dissolute life with dissolute conversation, 
with passing his time in drunkeness," and yet with all 
these sharp .imputations, in one brief letter he is three 
times called "Honorable,"" Beloved," "Valiant "and 
" Faithful ! " • 

In the year 1663-4, a real Dutch grievance was named 
as " the neglect of Staten Island by abandoning the 
Block House with more men to defend the Island than 
the number of English who came and took it," and the 
answer of Ex-Director Stuyvesant, in 1666, was ad- 
dressed to " the High and Mighty Lords States General 
of the United Netherlands! " 

PAST AND PRESENT NAMES. 

Most of the present homesteads at Port Richmond, 
Long Neck, the Fresh Kills and along what is known 
as the Kill von Kull, in the trying times of" the early 
settlements, were made into block houses and stockades 
for protection against the Indians. The names and 
homesteads of families living here more than two hun- 
dred years ago now hold the lands occupied b)'- their 
ancestors. Among those may be named the Conners, 
BoDiNKS, Crocherons, Disosways, Morgans, Skguines, 
Symes, Tysons, Poillons and Van Pelts. All of these 
names figure in the present as in the past times of the 
Island. Conspicuous among those whose estates were 



confiscated here were Peter and Jeremiah Van Der 
Belt, Jacques and Isaac Cortelyou, William and 
Barent Jansen, John Van Dyne, Nicholas Britton 
Richard Corsen, Richard, Thomas, Samuel and Nich- 
olas Stillwell, Tunis Van Wagener, Thomas and 
Daniel Wandel, Francisco Martino, Christopher 
Bii.LOP, William Norwood (who fled to the West Indies 
to escape execution), Peter Lakeman, Thomas Egbert, 
Abraham Lutine, Charles Coddington, Thomas Wal- 
ton. 

FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 

No reading can be more interesting to the students 
of Revolutionary history than the events which trans- 
pired in and around Staten Island. Recent years in the 
lives of millions of our present countrymen taught them 
both the cause and effect of civil war. The domestic strife 
from 1861 to 1865 found a million of men in arms at 
the close of the war, and another million killed, dis- 
abled or injured for life during the war. But these vast 
battle fields in territory were distant from us. In the 
War of the Revolution, as the records show, on this 
Island and in close neighborhood to it, the population 
counted at most but a few thousands. Near neighbors 
and dear friends were, if possible, in arms against each 
other more in 1776 than 1861-65. The King's ships 
surrounded the Island and all the city beyond it. Even 
little Bedloe's Island was held by malcontent Ameri- 
cans, who were nursed, fed and protected by the British, 
and when the Island was visited by a band of patriots 
they were fired upon and compelled to retreat, but not 
until, as Gov. Tryon informed Lord George Germain, 
" they (the patriots) had killed a number of poultry 
which His Excellency had reserved for some choice 
meal for General Howe's expected arrival." This was 
in April, '76, when the Governor also tells us he had 
seized a prize vessel — one of the many taken elsewhere 
— from Staten Island docks. 

Here, too, after consulting with Sir John Johnson on 
the Mohawk, who gave the largest aid and comfort to 



the enemy, having had three Indians for his guides and 
130 Highlanders for his followers and 120 tories for 
companions, all 01 route to Canada, the Deputy Com- 
missary, GuMERSALL, writes from Staten Island, August 
26, 1776, of his safe return from a most treasonable 
journey to encourage the Indians to join the British 
forces. 

The month before, arriving June 29th, General Howe 
had disembarked his troops (July, 1776,) on Staten 
Island, and Gov. Tryon writes four days later that : 

"The inhabitants of the Island came down to welcome their de- 
liverers and have since afforded the army every supply and accommo- 
dation in their power." 

In the same letter he adds : 

" On Saturda}' last I rec'd the Militia of the Island at Rich- 
mond town, where near 400 appeared, who cheerfully, on mv recom- 
mendation, took the oath of allegiance and fidelity to his Majesty." 

The day following came another muster for the en- 
listment of volunteers to form a Provincial Corps for 
defence of the Island, " as the General finds it an im- 
portant quarter to hold against the Rebels." 

And this unwise Governor writes, further on, in most 
glorious hope, that : 

"This loyalty to his Majesty and attachment to his Gov't upon 
the Island will be general through the Province as soon as the 
King's Army gets the main bod)' of the Rebels between them and 
the sea !" 

The next month came Lord Dunmore and Mr. 
Campbell, passengers in a fleet of twenty-five sail from 
the South ; and Lord George Germain, a week later, 
writes from St. James, that : » 

"The steady loyalty of the people of Staten Island cannot be 
too much commended and their affectionate reception of the troops 
under Gen. Howe cannot fail to recommend them to the particular 
favor of the Gov't," * * * and to "His Majesty's very great sat- 
isfaction in their conduct," and " His Majesty's paternal Regard and 
Constant Protection ! " 

A year later Tryon also writes to his Lordsliip that : 

"The inhabitants of Staten Island have raised ;^50oforthe com- 
fort and encouragement of the Provincial forces raised in this Pro- 
vince." 



23 

New York, Queens and Suffolk, I may add, were 
even more ready in this work of profit and honor to 
their British enemies. 

The Governor, Tryon, who thus figures so conspicu- 
ously for this Island, at the instance of Sir William 
Howe, was placed in comrnand of all the loyal Ameri- 
can levies as a compensation for his zeal. 

In the Autumn before, November ii, 1775, he writes 
to the Earl of Dartmouth, from off the Island, as follows : 

" It is certain that within this fortnight the spirit of Rebellion 
within this Province, especially in this city, has greatly abated, and 
we wait now for only 5,000 Regulars to open our Commerce and re- 
store our valuable Constitution ! The Counties of Westchester, 
Dutchess, King, Queen and Richtnond \\3id the bulk of their inhabit- 
ants well affected to the Gov't, and some friends in all the other 
Counties." 

Here too is a characteristic local epistle : 

GOV. TRYON TO LORD GEORGE GERMAIN. 

" Ship Duchess of Gordon, 

" Below the Narrows, 

"N. Y., 15th April, 1776. 
" My Lord : — On the 7th inst. I fell down the River to the 
Phoenix, but before Ave reached the ship we were alarmed by heavy 
Platoon Firings from the Staten Island shore, which, by the help of 
a spy-glass, we discovered to be the enemy firing upon the seamen 
landed for water at the watering place under cover of the Savage 
Sloop of War. The Savage began a cannonade, which was kept up 
for some hours and until called off by a signal from the Phenix." 

And this loyal Gov. Tryon notes " the grief and 
horror which this insult meant to the King's flag." It 
is pleasant to recall the fact that Gov. Tryon found at 
least some men upon the Island who were true to their 
own manhood and to the principles of free Government 
set forth in the Declaration of Independence. 

From September, 1778, to February, 1779, this same 
Governor writes that 142 vessels, valued at £200,000, 
were brought into this port (all passing this Island) 
under letters of marque ; but Tryon reckoned without 
his host when he closed with these words : 

" This campaign will effect the much sought for reconcilation.'' 



24 
THE OLD BILLOP HOUSE 

or homestead near Tottenville once covered a patent for 
921 acres of land, and later on was increased to 1,600, re- 
mains as one of the memorial and historical places of 
the war ; indeed it is one hundred years older than the 
Declaration of Independence and one of the two oldest 
upon the Island. Here were the headquarters of Lord 
Howe, and here, by his invitation to Congress after the 
sad disasters on Long Island, came old John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin and Edward Rutledge, Commis- 
sioners named by the Continental Congress to confer 
with the British Commander-in-Chief. No event of the 
war was more significant than this, every word of which 
sparkles with fire and life. It foreshadowed in the 
beginning what would be the end of the war. The in- 
terview was one of high loyal courtesy and of true 
Republican simplicity. A court of the most refined 
sovereigns of Europe could not be more dignified or 
polite. Submission was asked for in the name of the 
King of England upon the one side, and with all the pro- 
mises and advances that the kingly office could attach to 
submission ; and upon the other side separation and in- 
dependence was asked for and demanded in the name of 
the whole American people. The three Commissioners 
left the Island surrounded by long lines of British troops 
with Lord Howe for an escort in person. His Lordship 
placed his visitors upon his own barge with kindly 
words and with sad regrets that the mission which he 
had asked for had failed. 

Washington was at this time encamped at Morris- 
town, New Jersey, from whence the British were unable 
to dislodge his little army. Battle was more than once 
invited by a strong, well led and skillful British army. 
But Washington watched his opportunities and bided 
his time. He knew, and this was one of the chief rea- 
sons of his success, both his own weakness and his own 
strength. It was too soon for him to measure swords 
against a trained army. Like Fabius Maximus, who 
kept Hannibal in check without coming to an engage- 
ment, he made haste slowly, holding that patience was 



25 

the very essence of true valor. He remembered the 
Roman example and followed it through the war. 

BiLLOp's house, where he met the American Commis- 
sioners, was not only Lord Howe's headquarters but the 
owner thereof was a devotee of ihe Duke of York. 
He had sailed around Staten Island to prove that the 
Island belonged to New York, the Duke having decided 
that all islands lying in or near the harbor wliich could be 
circumnavigated in twenty-four hours belonged to his 
New York jurisdiction, and otherwise to New Jersey. 

For this and like services, earlier and later in Europe 
and in America, the Crown bestowed upon Billop, in 
1674, near Ttjttenville, 1,163 'icres of land, and these acres 
were known as the Billop plantation. The owner was 
also made lieutenant of a company of'one hundred men 
raised upon the Island, and tiiree years later, by Gov. 
Andros, the successer of Lovelace, a commander and 
a rate collector. We are told that he soon " miscon- 
ducted " by making "extravagant speeches in public," 
and as a consequence lost his commission and retired to 
his plantation. The last we hear of Billop was his own 
charges made in turn against Andkos, who was suc- 
ceeded by Brockholst. 

Another famous place was the British fort on Rich- 
mond Hill and near the present Court House, now cov- 
ered with trees and embankments and entangled with 
masses of briars. There is barely room now for two 
guns without limbers, and the old fort is seldom trodden 
by the foot of man. Here, for a long. lime, Lord Howe 
and his imposing chiefs of staff made their plans of battle. 
Here, commanded by the vicious and bloody Simcoe, 
one of the staff, the Queen's & ^ers were mustered 
into service. Here Knyphausen chief of his Hes- 

sian troops, drilled his hirelin^ xorces. Here came 
Major Andre, but not now as a spy to forfeit his 
life, but as an officer to assist his commander-in-chief. 
Here too came Sir Henry Clinton, watching the move- 
ments of the army of " rebels " and consulting through 
many anxious days the probable consequences of rebel- 
lion against King George and the motherland. 



26 

The British, July 4th, 1776, took possession of Staten 
Island amidst the solemnity if not gloom ^f most of 
the inhabitants, a majority of whom were not English 
either by birth, inheritance or interest, yet dreading the 
war. From 1776 to 1783 the city beyond us, Long- 
Island and this Island were without any representation 
in the counsels of the Province. When old Cambridge 
and old Boston had been relieved by Washington of 
their aspiring taskmasters, the British fleet, which found 
no rest in Boston Harbor, came filled with troops ta 
New York for rest, and they found it here in successful 
possession to the hour of their final exit. That depar- 
ture was to all true men as eyes to the blind, speech to' 
the deaf and health to the infirm. The heart of one 
who looked upon this glad scene thus leaps within him 
in his expressions of joy: 

" We stood on the heights at the Narrows, looked down upon 
the decks of their ships ; were ver}' boisterous in our demonstrations 
of joy. We siiouted, clapped our hands, waved our hats, sprang 
into the air. Some fired 2l feu dejoie; others, in the exuberance of 
their gladness, indulged in gestures which, though very expressive,, 
were neither wise nor judicious. The British resented the insult, and 
a large 74 fired and struck the bank a few feet from the spot where the 
shouts went forth, but as there was no cannon to answer the shot the 
crowd ran off as fast as they could. Another group which looked 
out upon the passing ships gazed upon ti>e scene witli tears in their 
eyes," 

The clouds which for seven years, like the curtains 
of a night without moon or stars, had hung over the 
land were now lifted from our little Island, and to the 
joy of all the sun of day rested upon its shores and peo- 
ple. Among those wlio left were faithless lovers and 
false husbands who had won confiding hearts in Ameri- 
can homes, and among those who remained were many 
who were tired of fighting for pay, for glory and for 
Britain. Here upon virgin soil were the promises and 
rewards of peaceful labor. Here was part of the land 
which by " turf and twig " had been purchased, and 
which the Duke of York had pronounced " the most 
commodiouest seate and richest land in America ! " 



27 

We may not now say this of the material value of 
this Island, but if there is real wealth in one of the 
fairest spots of earth, with the sea and bay for its out- 
ward borders and within uplands that for two score of 
miles overlook the surrounding country, and forests 
that in their Autumn glory reflect all the colorings of 
the sky and all the beauties of nature, then indeed this 
little island " remains the richest land in America ! " See 
Appendix D. 

THE ATTAINDER OF TREASON 

was in many cases here a costly offence to those who 
indulged in disobedience to authority. In 1783 or 
'84 the Commissioners of Forfeiture of rebel estates 
compelled the sale of the Manor of Bentley of 850^ 
acres and 350 acres of other land belonging to Chris- 
topher BiLLOP, and 370 acres belonging to Bcnjamin 
Seaman. These two island estates placed about $23,000 
in the treasury. Twenty-four other pieces of tory prop- 
erty confiscated 1 find of record, but for nearly a cen- 
tury and a half all important local records of the 
county are missing. 

On this subject of rebellion I am sorry to say that 
Washington felt compelled in one of his letters to 
speak not only of the " disaffection of tiie people of Am- 
boy," but of "the treachery of those of Staten Island, 
who, after the fairest professions, have shown themselves 
our inveterate enemies ! " And as a consequence he 
ordered that " all persons of known enmity and doubt- 
ful character should be removed from these places." 
Whether Washington ever landed upon Staten Island is 
disputed, but among his bills of charges is the following : 

" 1776, April 25th. 
"To the exps. of myself and party rec'tg sevl. landing 

places on Staten Island, ;i^i6. 10. o." 

Gen. Howe in his letter to Lord Gekmain, dated 
Staten Island, July 18, 1776, speaks of landing his 
Grenadiers and Light Infantry upon the Island, to "the 
great joy of a most loyal and long suffering people." 
These loyal tory people were, if not as to any very large 
numbers, without much long suffering, and the last record 



28 

"was a Creature of the imagination rather than a fact in real 
life. There were rebels enough, however, to give a bad 
name to the Island. The Provincial Congress and the 
prompt action of the Commander-in-Chief soon silenced 
all open expressions of treason, and compelled respect, 
if not obedience, to all prescribed public duties. That 
the rebuke of Washington became necessary is proved 
by the sending of three tories to the Provincial As- 
sembly to represent the County. Their names are Ben. 
J. vSeaman, his son-in-law Christopher Billop, and 
Abraham Jones. 

The truth of history compels us to see and say that 
the controlling majority of this Island people were 
not in the beginning friends of civil liberty nor ready to 
separate themselves from the mother country. Too 
many of them literally gave aid and comfort to the 
enemy. If, however, we are inclined to be too critical 
at the present time upcjn the men of the past, it is 
always a wise rule to put \ourseIf in the place of the 
man you censure. 

Recently there came before me ihe following letter 
from General Washington, written in a very clear hand 
103 years ago, to Capt. Judah Alden, C(^mmanding 
officer at Dobb's Ferry, which as a record of local iiis- 
tory must be preserved : 

Headquarters, 23d Novem., 1780. 

Sir : I impart to you in confidence that I intend to execute an 
enterprise against Staten Island to-morrow night, for which reason I 
am desirous of cutting off all intercourse with the enemy on the 
east side of the river. You will therefore to-morrow at retreat beat- 
ing set a guard upon any boats which may be at the fiat or neck, and 
not suffer any to go out on any pretense whatever until next 
morning. Toward evening you will send a small party down to the 
Closter landing, and if they find any boats there you will give orders 
to have them scuttled in such a manner that they cannot be imme- 
diately used, but to prevent a possibility of it the party may remain 
there until toward daylight — but are not to make fires or discover them- 
selves — and then return to your post. I depend upon the punctual 
observation of this order, and that you will keep this motive a secret. 
Acknowledge the rec't of this, that I may be sure you h;ive got it. 
I am, Sir, Yr. Most obt. Servt., 

GEO. WASHINGTON. 



; 



29 

As misery loves comj^any, we must remember that 
there were, if possible, worse evils than this local dis- 
affection. Staten Island more than once had twenty 
thousand British troops on its shores and inland, while 
all along its borders were the British fleet. Within and 
without the enemy were in great force. Even personal 
aid and comfort to the enemy seemed a mild offence 
compared with the startling mutiny of the unpaid troops 
of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, w^hen, in January,, 
1 78 1, LaFayette was banished from their presence 
while pleading for obedience and order, and 500 guns 
were aimed at Gen. Wayne for raising a pistol against 
disloyal troops. Even the loved name and presence of 
Washington and a large body of troops were necessary 
to compel the fidelity of the Jersey troops. But to the 
honor of these tempted and misled ^soldiers, when 
Sir Henry Clinton sent three American tories to bribe 
and buy them with British gold they were hung upon 
the spot, and there was no more mutiny during the war. 

PROBLEMS SOLVED BY TIME IN AMERICA. 

First, let me say in conclusion, and I shall recite bxxt 
a few of the many thoughts suggested from this record, 
is the fact that people may be gathered in one country 
from all the civilizations of the world, and there mingle 
together in harmony. As drops of water come from the 
uplands into the rivers and from the rivers into the sea,K 
so separate peoples, states and nations, as we have seen 
in America, may become united, prosperous and happy. 
This we have seen from the first advanced steps taken 
and maintained in the march for free government in 
the early settlements of America. I need not say how 
much we owe to the civilizations which first pointed the 
way to America ; to the Printing Press born in Ger- 
many, and there and elsewhere lifting the learning of 
all previous times from the monasteries and sepulchres 
where it had been so long concealed to that Anglo- 
Saxon race and life which secured freedom of worship 
to the Church and personal freedom to the State, with 
" right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness " for 



3° 

all mankind. The first real triumph in America was 
seen in religious toleration when the Pilgrims were 
practically banished from one country and the Wald- 
enses and Hugnenots from another; but, alas, even this 
victory lost half of its moral force when, for a season, 
those who fled from the old world to secure toleration 
in the new failed to grant to others what they had de- 
manded themselves. 

Second : The other problem solved, and one in 
sympathy with the one I have named is that America 
is the home of the banished, exiled and voluntary 
escaping peoples of the crowded nations of Europe. 
We count about four millions of our people as immi- 
grants from the old world, with probably as many more 
millions of their children born upon the soil. We are 
often alarmed af this rush across the seas, numbering, as 
they do at times, five, six and even seven hundred thous- 
and in single years of time, and some of these multi- 
tudes are of the very ignorant, the very poor, and too 
many of the vicious classes. For these unwelcome 
classes there is but one relief, and that relief is the best 
possible education in all those solid branches of learn- 
ing which teach first of all the ways of moral and 
material self support ; and next to this, or rather as a 
part of this, the kind of education which makes honest 
and intelligent men and women. On this strong foun- 
dation you may build the best possible citizenship. No 
intelligent foreign born citizen, whatever his religious 
or political faith, will complain when I say that all who 
come to our shores for homes or for permanent trade, 
for living and dying, for the gains of prosperity or to 
endure the trials of adversity, should be thoroughly 
Americanized, and first of all in our schools and semin- 
aries of learning and then in the letter and spirit of our 
liberal form of Government. Where these fail the dis- 
cipline of authorized legal punishment must do the rest. 

Third : Another problem solved is that Republics 
may have a long life and ample provisions for the 
common defense without large standing armies. A 
true Republic knows hoAV to establish justice, secure 



31 

the general welfare, with civil and religious liberty ; 
how to be free from all entangling alliances with foreign 
nations; how to preserve all federal authority which 
belongs to the General Government without infringing 
upon the powers which, by common consent, belong to 
the several States. Popular Government and Republi- 
can Government have nowhere seen in the world an ex- 
ample like this, and the root and branch of all such 
success rests upon self-restraint, self-government and 
self-preservation. 

Fourth : Another problem solved has been the rise 
and fall of domestic slavery. The end came by the 
sword, when the sword alone could cut the knot which 
held freedom and slavery in the same bond of political 
union. As the States grew in numbers and people the 
slaves increased to millions, and had the end not come 
when it did, and probably as it did, there would have 
been to-day six millions of slaves in thirteen of the 
thirty-eight States of the Union. Nothing but the 
terrible medicine of cannon, infantry and artillery, 
served at times by two millions of men, was equal to 
the crisis. The South invited Emancipation when it 
asked for Disunion, and the East, North and West ac- 
cepted the invitation. When, after long delay and great 
provocation, President Lincoln proclaimed Emancipa- 
tion, it was for a time a life and death struggle, and 
freedom conquered in the end and with as much real 
advantage to the South as to the North. 

In our criticisms of States where slavery was defend- 
ed, in the presence of nearly four millions of slaves, we 
may as well remember that once upon this little I.sland 
there were nearly i,ooo slaves, or more than one- 
fourth of its entire population. Slavery came to its end 
here as much from profit as honor. We now heartily 
thank God that "this irrepressible conflict" has depart- 
ed for all time and that no spot of earth is trodden 
by the footsteps of a slave in any State or territory of 
our American Union. In 1771, in a population of 2,847, 
there were 594 slaves here ; in j 790, with a population of 
3,942, there were 819 slaves. "The peculiar institu- 



32 

tion," so-called, came to its end here only when it came 
to its end elsewhere, by proper forms of law, in the 
State. The first local 'record of slavery I can find is in 
1755, when there were 59 male and 52 female slaves at- 
tested to in the following statement made from this 
Island to the Lt. Governor and General Assembly: 

"A list of the Neagroes of my division in the North Couteny of 
Siaten Island. JACOB CORSSEN, /««." 

In the list of owners, later on, Thomas Dong an is 
credited with seven males and three females. 

The final problem I shall suggest but not discuss, is 
the real age of America within and beyond the time 
when Hudson held council with the natives of this 
Island. If the history of Iceland is a true record, con- 
secutivelv, at least during each century from the year 
1,000 to the year 1,400, voyages were made in all these 
vears before the discovery of Coluaibus in the closing 
period of the fifteenth century. But these periods be- 
long not to the present occasion, and are to most of us 
like an untold tale. 

What we do know and understand, however, is the 
political and material growth of America and of the 
revolutions of time and events which mak^ us what we 
are. We have seen how true it is, in a moral sense, 
that revolutions never go backward. We trace ihem 
direct from the memorable forces of 1688 in England 
to the Declaration of Independence in America, and the 
fulfillment of that Declaration in the two wars with 
England, and in the greater conquest of ourselves in the 
final results of the civil war. The material growth we 
know of has been from a Province of 10,000 people to a 
State of five and a half millions ; from a metropolis of 
two or three thousand to a city of 1,500,000 ; froin an 
Island of a score of white people to one of 40,000, and 
this last has been, and for reasons you can well imagine, 
the slowest growth of all. 

If, in conclusion, I am asked — and I am asked — the 
need or wisdom of this commemoration, the answer 
comes, in part, in our prosperous homes, in our ma- 
terial growth and wealth, in our personal freedom, and 



33 

In our local, State and national independence. *' The 
little one has become a thousand and the strong one a 
great nation." Literally this comparatively small piece 
of land, covering about seven oy fourteen miles, one 
of the smallest in the State, but large enough to be 
known all the time as the gem of the seas and the island 
of beauty, h;is grown from a colony of hardly forty 
people to a county of 40,000, and the Province of New 
York, in a very limited territory, in comparison with 1683, 
from twelve districts to sixty counties, and in a century ot 
time from a population too small for a census to one of 
5,500,000, with towns increased from about two score in 
1683 to nearly 1,000, and beyond all tliese towns there are 
now in the Statetwenty-four grand cities and 230 villages. 
The nation has added since 1783 fifty-two millions to 
its population, and to its territory, in square miles, from 
820,680 in 1803 to 3.466,166 in 1883, and all these miles, 
apart from the cost of war, for $58,000,000. Beyond all 
these figures, I find in the presence of the large con- 
course of people before me, free from all the preju- 
dices of sects or parties, of persons or places, abundant 
reason why, as fellow citizens, we may assemble at least 
once or twice in the space of one or two hundred years 
to thank God for the blessings of the past and to im- 
plore their continuance for all time to come. 

Finally, you in this public manner recognize the first 
organization of the County of Richmond, which two 
hundred years ago to-day, under the first Charter of 
Liberties, granted by the British Government, pro- 
claimed their right to receive, possess and retain all the 
privileges which belong to the citizens of a free com- 
monwealth. 



34 



APPENDIX A. 

Extract from Dr. Ephraim Clark's letter to Hon. 
Erastus Brooks, dated New York October 12th, 1883. 

* * * * There is but the one deed of the Guion farm, 
dated March 25th, Twenty-seventh year of His Majesty's reign, Anno 
Domini, 1675. The deed is 208 years old, and is signed by Edmund 
Andros for the British Government. The farm paid yearly, and 
every year, unto His Royal Highness, as a quit rent, eight bush- 
els of good winter wheat. Another deed of conveyance is dated 
the 5th of May in the nth year of the reign of "our Sovereign Lord 
King George the II. Later on, one in 1738, 145 )'ears ago, and one 
on February 22d, "in the 28th year of His Majesty's reign," 1775, 
and this deed is 128 years old. This farm has been in the Guion 
family 212 years. 



APPENDIX B. 

The Assembl}' convened by Gov. Dongan, first met at Port 
James, October 17, 1683, by authority of the Duke of York, and 
under the title of " Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by 
His Royal Highness to the inhabitants of New York and its depen- 
dencies." In less than two years, when the Duke was King, or in 
March, 1685, the order came that " His Majesty doth not thinke it 
fit to confirm." 

While the Assembl)^ of 1683 was the first popular body known 
to the Island and Province, there was in 1664, a convention of dele- 
gates at Flushing, in which Staten Island was represented by David 
DE Marest and Pierre Biljou. The object of this call was " to 
represent to the States General and West India Company the dis- 
tressed state of the country." 

November ist commemorates the date of the existence of the 
Charter of Liberties, the session of the Assembly which confirmed 
that charter and gave the first recognition of the rights of the people 
in the Province of New York. Richmond County, by act of the As- 
sembly on this date, was made one of the 12 shires or counties of the 
State. It was in 1663 that Gov, Dongan labored to extinguish the 
spirit of discontent, by declaring that "no laws or rates should be 
imposed for the future but by a General Assembly." In November, 
1663, it was also declared that the New York County of Richmond 
contains Staten Island and the adjacent islands. Ten years later, 
August 15-25, Pierre Biljou, Schout, and two other Schepens, were 
the local authorities of Staten Island. 



35 

By order of the king, Gov. Dongan was compelled to revoke 
the order for a second Assembly of the people convened in 1683. 
"You are to declare," writes King James in 1686, "our will and 
pleasure, that the said Bill or Charter passed by the late Assembly 
of New York, be forthwith repealed and disallowed, as the same is 
hereby repealed, determined and made void." The only exception 
was the imposition of taxes and authority at Gov. Dongan's good 
will and pleasure, to "permit all persons of what religions soever, 
quietly to inhabit in your government without giving them any dis- 
turbance or disquiet whatsoever by reason of their different opinions 
in matters of religion, provided they give no disturbance to the pub- 
lic peace, nor doe molest or disquiet otheis in the full exercise of 
their religion." 



APPENDIX C. 

INDIAN HISTORY, LIFE, MONEY, ETC. 

The Indian life and manners of the Raritans make one of the 
interesting chapters in the Island history. The aborigines had 
neither knowledge of God nor of reli_L'ion. They believed in good 
and evil spirits, and had their medicine man or spiritual priest, 
wiiose chief medicine was to roarIii<e a demon to the sick and ilying. 
This priest was called Kitsinacka. He traveled where he ciiose, 
made all homes his own, and his order w:is that onl}' maiden hands 
and elderly single women should cook his food. The dead upon 
the Island, as elsewhere, were placed in the earth uncofiined, in a 
sitting posture, resting upon a stone or block of wood, and clothed 
in all their most costly apparel, witii money in hand to pay their way 
to the spirit land. Pots, kettles, platteis, spoons ;ind provisions were 
near by to make the heavenly journey one of convenience and com- 
fort. The Indians lived upon corn, fish and game, and clothed 
themselves in the skins of the beaver, the fox and the hear, which 
abounded upon the Island. Their weapons were bows and arrows, 
sharpened with fish bones or stones The men had maiiy wives, and 
the women cultivated the soil, the product of which was chiefly corn, 
beans, squashes and tobacco Turkey corn was the general food. 
The health of the people was marvellously good, and disease was 
rarely known among them. Blindness, lameness and cramps, and 
what we call rheumatism, were ailments quite unknown. 

The description of these Indian mm and women, as handed 
down to us by Wassenaer, (Amsterdam, 1631-32), is that they were 
a well-fashioned people, strong in constitution of body, well-propor- 
tioned, and without blemish. In a certain sense, all were astrono- 
mers. The Sun, Moon and Stars inspired their awe if not their 
reverence, and the light of the Moon following its February and 



36 

August appearance, was made a season of rejoicing with a feast of 
game and fish, and for a marvel, after the intercourse with the white 
people, the drink was pure water. 

The INDIAN CURRENCY OR LEGAL TENDER MONEY waS aS simple 

as the leather money of ancient Greece. For ii8 years, both for 
New Netherlands and New England, the basis of all money was 
clamshells, and the beds of these shells, found on Long and Staten 
Islands, were the real money mints of the aborigines. The single 
white wampum bead had the value of an English penny, and the 
black wampum beads bad less value. Both were placed upon 
strings, just as the Chinese fasten their pennies. The Indian wam- 
pum was as much a manufacture as money coined in the U. S. mints, 
and the value put upon it was no more arbitrary than our present 
coined dollars, the value of which is but 15 per cent, of real value. 
The thin part of the clam shell was split ofT with a light hammer, 
ground into forms an inch long and half an inch thick. The pieces 
were bored longitudinally, strung upon iiemp thread or the dried 
sinews of the beasts of the forests, and then sold by the chief. The 
wampum belts were the beads thus strung together The Indians 
spurned the silver dollar, and knew nothing of gold values. They 
clung to their shell money, and 200 years ago the schoolmaster re- 
ceived his pay in wheat of wampum values, and the parents paid 12 
stuyvers in wampum for each baptism. The ferriage between New 
York and Brooklyn ten years later, 1693, was equal to eight stuyvers, 
or a silver two-pence, payable in wampum, and the same kind of 
money was used between the Island and New York. 

Indians as Land Speculators. — The Island had a double sale 
of its land from the Indians. One Mattano, Chief Indian and land 
speculator, was an example quite beyond the modern school. The 
land sold by him in 1651 was resold by him in 1664, and the last sale 
included Elizabethtown and stretched from the Raritan River to the 
Bay of New York. Essex County, N. J., was included in this tract, 
and the whole was sold for thirty-six pounds and fourteen shillings, 
or at the rate of ten acres for one cent. The Indian names appended 
to this sale are Mattano, Mariawome and Conascomon. More than 
one tribe or set of Chiefs claimed to be the owners or masters of the 
Island. Later on the Dutch, the English, the Quakers in 1684 under 
William Penn, New Jersey and NewNetherlands, Kings Charles and 
James, Dongan and Andros, and finally the States of New York and 
New Jersey, have all laid claim to Staten Island, and the latter State 
adhered to this claim from 1S07 to 1833, when the contest was closed 
by compromise. This ended a controversy of almost 220 years as to 
the true ownership. In 1670 it was purchased for King James. In 
1688 it was adjudged to belong to New York. In 1693 it was under 
a Dutch sellout and two schcpetis. In 1681 Lady Carteret chumed 
the island as a part of East Jersey, by virtue of a grant from " His 



37 

Royal Highness," dated 1669, and the Duke of York claimed it as a 
purchase from the savages made in 1670. 

Revolutionary Relics. — The four chief Revolutionary posts 
upon the Island were at Fort Hill, Richmond Hill, Pavilion Hill, 
Herpicks' Observatory, and all around bayonets, balls and flint locks 
and other evidences of war have been found in great abundance. 



APPEDNIX D. 

GENERAL NOTES UPON STAIEN ISLAND. 

I am indebted to Arthur Halleck, Esq., and others, 
for the following combination of facts upon Indian 
and revolutionary relics, geology, mineralogy, coast 
lines, botany, &c., of the Island, received in reply to a 
request for this information : 

Archeology. — There are two marked locations where the ab- 
origines used to congregate. One at Watchogue or Bloomfleld, in 
Northfield, and the other near the Billop House, Tottenville, and 
Princes Bay in Westfield. 

Hundreds of stone implements (pestles, mortars, hatchets, sink- 
ers, arrowheads, beads, &c.) have been found mixed up with the shells. 

Indian burying grounds have been discovertd near Tottenville, 
and isolated remains at other point.s, notablj- near the old foris of 
Revolutionary times. In these grounds the skeletons were always 
accompanied by arrow heads, tom;ihawks, «S:c. In one of them imple- 
ments resembling knitting needles, and stone beads were used as 
ornaments. 

At Watchogue the heap of chips and broken implements were 
evidently dropped in the manufacture of ornaments or wampum. 
The majority of arrow heads found in these shell heaps are hunt- 
ing arrows showing that the Indians were on peaceful expeditions* 
The war arrows were found in the burying grounds or near the 
old forts. 

Geology and Mineralogy. — There are five geological forma- 
tions on the island : The primitive granite, whose only outcrop is 
seen just below Nautilus Hall at Tompkinsville. The archean ser- 
pentine, forming the "backbone" of the Island from Brighton Point 
to Richmond, is represented by hills of soapstone and serpentine. 
The triassic is represented by red shales and the trap d3'ke or 
"granite" ridge of Graniteville, extending from Port Richmond to 
Linoleumville. The cretaceous, consisting of clays and sands at 
Tottenville and Kreischerville, and finally a drift covers all but 
a small portion near the extreme southern and western part of the 



3« 

Island. M;iny of these formations are of great economic value. 
The trap rock at Graniteville, erroneously called "granite," is used 
for macadam and paving. Tlie clays at Kreischerville make the 
very best fire brick. Ttie drift clays at Elm Park and Green Ridge 
make fine building brick. The gravel beds of the drift yield the best 
building sand for mortar. " Asbestos" from the soapstone hills has 
been used, when mixed w^ith other substances, as a valuable anti- 
friction compoumd. On top of the serpentine there are local de- 
posits of "limonite" or bog iron ore, which has been very exten- 
sively worked. It is very rich, easily worked, but not in large 
quantities. 

The Island Coast Lines. — People now living have seen 200 
feet of the beach carried away near New Dorp, and what was once 
salt meadow is far out below low water mark. The old meadow 
turf and tlie stumps of cedar trees are still seen. This material thus 
borne down the beach has extended the long spit of sand at the 
mouth of Great Kills, near Giffords. A considerable deposit of mag- 
netic sand is noticed at South Beach, near New Dorp, and from lime 
to time projects for utilizing it have been entertained. This is a part 
of the iron washed by the river currertt, and in this drift is seen speci- 
mens of nearly all the rocks between New Dorp and Canada, just as 
they weie transported by the continent:il glacier whose southern limit 
in this part of the United States was across the Southern end of 
Staten Island. This line of glacial deposits is unmistakeable, and 
the bluff at Princes Bay is one of its boldest features. Among these 
specimens are found granite from tlie Canadian Highlands, boulders 
of limestone from the upper Hudson River, containing fossils, and 
stray pieces of lead and iron ore from the deposits of New York or 
New England. 

Our Island Botany. — No section of the country east of the 
Mississippi, of an equal area, is as rich in plant life as Staten Island. 
Local botanists have recorded about 1,300 plants apart from those 
grown by cultivation. This is due to the great diversity in pln- 
siographic conditions. Salt and fresji water, woods, dry hills and 
swamps are all here about. These and tlie different geological foi- 
mations give rise to a great variety in the flora. Fifty of these 
species are found in no other county in the State, and these are 
mostly found on the little piece of cretacea near Tottenville, which 
is a continuation of the Amboy clay beds. Twenty-two species new 
to the State of New York have been been found within the last three 
years. The 'trailing arbutus" or " May flower" is gathered here by 
basketfuls everj' spring, as it is tlie nearest point to New York 
where it is known to grow. It is likely to be exterminated in a lew 
years. The "salt hay" here is a species of rush found upon our 
salt meadows. Water cress is grown extensively in streams on the 
west side. The original plains were piob,ibl\ na'ivu here. 



39 

Our forest growth is an important factor in our prosperity, or 
will be a few years hence, if we expect to obtain our water supply 
from the Island. The water courses, now only full of water when it 
rains, were formerly constant running brooks. Old springs are 
dried up, and ponds which used to overflow continually by a running 
stream have become either mudd}"^ pools, stagnant swamps, or are 
obliterated. 

The Sanitary Aspect of the Island. — Living springs and 
running water do not produce mahiria. but swamps and stagnant 
pools are a real danger, and assist in breeding mosquitos. 

Zoology and Ornithology. — Formerly deer, foxes and many 
other large animals are known to have lived and bred here. Now 
we only have squirrels, rabbits, skunks, muskrats, and other small 
rodents, with perhaps a few weasels. 

With the disappearance of the woods the game leaves us. A 
few quail and woodcock are still to be found and some wild pi- 
geon. Snipe are occasionall}' plentiful. Stray ducks find their way 
here. In severe winters an eagle is sometimes seen. The patient 
fisherman can even yet hook a trout in some of our streams and 
ponds. Seals visit us and would remain if not disturbed. 



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